Chasing Ghosts (10 page)

“
He had it on him?” Sara
asked.

Padre smiled, the proverbial canary sneaking
a peek between the cop’s lips. “In him,” the detective said.

Sara winced. “How can you be sure? It could
have come from one of the cars.”

“
Skin, brain matter.”

“
It wasn’t all burned away?” Dagger
only had to look at the metal once to know it was similar to the
one Skizzy had from the first Demko.

“
Blown away was more like
it.”

He and Sara said nothing. But nothing is one
of the worst things you could do around Padre. Sara feigned shock.
“Do you think he was a terrorist? Who else would strap a bomb to
himself?”

“
My bomb experts didn’t detect any of
the usual bomb- making materials.”

“
Have you interviewed Cardinal Esrey?”
Dagger asked.

“
Headed there now.” Padre caught sight
of Sheila rushing across the parking lot toward him. “And it
appears I’m leaving in the nick of time.” He moved in the opposite
direction of Sheila, flicked his cigarette butt away, and sprinted
to his unmarked car.

“
Damn.” Sheila smacked her notepad
against her thigh. She turned to Dagger. “Did he tell you
anything?” Although Sheila had finally faced the fact that her
engagement to Dagger was off permanently, the only thing she had
officially done was move his ring from her left hand to her right
hanD.

“
No. For some reason he is really
keeping this one close to the vest. Maybe having been in the
seminary Padre’s trying to protect the cardinal. He’s going over to
the Tylers to talk to him now. Why don’t you see what you can find
out?” Dagger raked his eyes down her exposed cleavage and short
skirt. “Although I think I’d change first before meeting with the
cardinal.”

Sheila narrowed her green eyes at him. “And
what is your interest in all this?”

“
Just love a puzzle.”

She gave an exaggerated swivel to her hips as
she strolled back to her car, tossing a flirtatious smile over her
shoulder before climbing in and driving off. If she was trying to
annoy Sara, it wasn’t working. Sara instead had been concentrating
on the charred area where Dagger’s truck had been parked.

Dagger remembered seeing the news reports
last night of the cars in flames in the hotel parking lot. Even
when Sara had told him she had fallen out of the twelfth floor
window with Demko but had shifted, it hadn’t dawned on him that she
wouldn’t have been able to drive home.

Dagger washed his hands over his face. “I
hope like hell that the license plates are too damaged to trace. At
least the serial number had been filed off.”

“
I’ve watched the CSI programs. They
use something that can raise the numbers.”

“
Thanks for the
encouragement.”

CHAPTER 12

Skizzy wheeled his chair from one computer to
the next. He was in the concrete bunker below the pawn shop.
Shelves of canned goods and water bottles could keep him supplied
for years should the big one come, as Skizzy put it.

“
No one is this squeaky clean,” Dagger
said as he stood by the printer reading additional information on
Cardinal Esrey. Dagger picked up the metal plate Skizzy had
retrieved after the first Demko’s death. He told him about the
similar one Padre had shown him and how it might have come from
last night’s victim.

Without even turning from the computer Skizzy
said, “Clone. Government has been cloning assassins for years.”

“
Padre wasn’t too forthcoming. Did you
find anything in the medical examiner’s database?”

“
That’s the strange thing. He is
treating this as a normal suicide without any mention of the metal
contraption or an internal bomb, nothing. Authorities obviously
don’t know what to make of it so they are keeping their suspicions
off the public records.”

Dagger set the metal plate down and picked up
the Emails from Connie which Skizzy had found on Demko’s computer.
“Have you found out anything more about these Emails?”

“
Not yet.”

We have a problem,
Dagger
. Sara’s voice was infused with
alarm.

Dagger turned the page to the next
Email.
What is it, Sara?
It
amazed him that copper wire could block Skizzy’s bunker from
electronic bugs but there wasn’t one thing that could stop
telepathy.

All the evidence is gone from the quarry. Not
one sign of Demko’s remains.

That doesn’t sound good.
Certainly explains Padre’s cockiness lately. What are you doing at
the quarry?
Dagger asked. There was a long silence.
Dagger knew exactly why Sara had gone back.

Are Simon and Skizzy sure that Demko
died?

Dagger heard a distinct quiver in
Sara’s voice. The
Friday the
Thirteenth
killer had been a shapeshifter like Sara.
Although they incinerated his remains to assure that he couldn’t
regenerate, even Padre and Dagger himself had second thoughts as to
its effectiveness. And now with a second Demko running around, had
the first reassembled? Completely outrageous thought but Dagger’s
life was anything but normal.

Yes. I would have second
thoughts, too, except for the strange way Padre has been acting.
It’s a wonder he hasn’t choked on those canary feathers. I expect a
call from him the moment he realizes the truck Demko’s body fell on
was mine.
Dagger thought about that for a
second.
Oh shit.

What?

Dagger turned to Skizzy. “Can you get into
the police department records of stolen vehicles and fill out a
report on my truck? Date the report yesterday morning. You have all
the info on it, including the license plate number.”

“
Good as done.” Skizzy smiled a little
too devilishly. Any time he could play around in the heads of the
locals, he was in his element.

Dagger told Sara, in thought only, what he
had asked Skizzy to do.

Of all the vehicles to fall on. I should have
parked it on the street but I wanted to blend in.

Don’t worry about it. What’s done is
done.

That’s the second vehicle of yours I’ve
destroyed.

You never did like that truck. Sometimes I
think you destroy them on purpose. Dagger smiled at that
thought.

I liked the ’64 Mustang convertible. I LOVED
your Mustang convertible.

Dagger sighed.
My ’64-and-a-half classic Mustang convertible. It was a
beauty.

“
All done,” Skizzy
announced.

Go on home,
Sara
. “Thanks, Skizzy. Now all I have to do is wait
for Padre to get the heads-up on the identification of all the
vehicles destroyed last night.”

“
And then what? Can’t dance around that
old tune for too long,” Skizzy said.

“
Right. Then I’ll have to do what I
don’t do best…come clean.”

“
I won’t take up too much of your time,
Your Eminence.” Padre took a seat at the conference table in the
Tyler mansion.

“
I’m just glad to have some quiet time
to finish my speech. I understand the hotel is pretty hectic
today.” Esrey was casually dressed in dark pants and shirt. He set
aside his yellow lined pad to give the detective his undivided
attention.

Padre waited for Lily to set a tray of
glasses and a water pitcher on the table. Once she closed the
conference door, he pulled out his notepad and pen. “Had you met
Hank Hanover, the security guard who was murdered in your hotel
room?”

Esrey appeared to wince at the word murdered.
“No, I hadn’t. My assistant asked the hotel to arrange for security
when we realized there might be some disruptions during my stay. I
sent a letter of condolence to his family.”

“
The hotel claims they had not received
a call for housekeeping yet a cleaning cart was outside your hotel
room.”

“
Sorry.” Esrey shrugged apologetically.
“I, of course, was here. I certainly don’t want to accuse Mister
Hanover of anything but if he was inside of my hotel suite then it
wasn’t what was understood of his services. Perhaps he heard
something and asked housekeeping to unlock the door.”

“
That’s what I had thought, although
housekeeping would have had to admit the intruder first and we
can’t find the employee in order to ask her.”

“
I thought hotels had surveillance
cameras.”

“
That certainly would make my job a lot
easier. The floor you are on has had the cameras removed for guest
privacy, which doesn’t make sense because these guests are
statistically more likely to be victims of crime.”

Padre flipped to the next page in the
notepad. “Your assistant studied the photos I took of your hotel
suite but doesn’t think anything had been stolen. Do you have any
idea what the thief might have been looking for?”

“
Probably for me. Perhaps he was the
father or relative of an abused child who wanted to voice his
disappointment in the church. I have run into them for a number of
years now. Most will sit down and speak rationally. Some are a bit
vocal. But certainly no acts of violence.”

“
There’s always a first time. Six
radicals disrupted Easter Mass at a cathedral in Chicago. Their
issue was the Iraq war.”

“
Yes, I heard about that. We are living
in some very conflicting times. I know the church has a lot of
fences to mend, Sergeant.” Esrey poured two glasses of water and
passed one to Padre. The French doors to the veranda were open and
the sounds of riding mowers could be heard, sending the scent of
grass clippings wafting through the air. “Have you identified the
man who committed suicide?”

“
Not yet. If he had any identification
on him, it was destroyed in the fire.” Padre didn’t want to share
all of Luther’s findings. “We do have DNA but it will take a week
or two to get those results.” Padre studied the extremely calm man.
For having two people die in his hotel suite, he would have
expected Esrey to cancel his speech and leave town. But he was
standing firm, either from naiveté or sheer
stubbornness.

Padre made one more attempt to change the
cardinal’s mind. “You can always reschedule your speech. If this
man did mean to cause you harm or was so distraught to commit
suicide, there may be others out there.”

But even as he spoke, the cardinal was
shaking his head back and forth. “I know it’s your job, Sergeant
Martinez, but I’m not going to change my plans. From here I go to
Rome for a special hearing with the Pope.”

Translation: interview. Padre had heard that
Esrey was being considered for an undisclosed post at the Vatican.
The secrecy surrounding the appointment made Padre think that Esrey
might garner an ambassadorship or special envoy assignment to a
country where religion is frowned upon, thus the need for
discretion.

“
The hotel management can’t explain how
the intruder gained access to the executive level of the
hotel.”

Esrey thought about that for a moment,
twisting and pulling at one eyebrow. It appeared strange for a
grown man to have the nervous habit of a child. “Did you ever
think, Sergeant, that maybe the man was a hotel worker? Maybe he
had a key to my floor.”

“
The manager accounts for all of his
employees. Doesn’t even have a housekeeping employee
missing.”

“
Obviously, it isn’t that hard to get a
key.”

Padre pushed his chair away and stood.
Something still wasn’t clicking. “You know, it was in the papers
that Robert Tyler was hosting a reception for you. I can’t help
thinking this guy was waiting for you to leave so he could search
your hotel room, which tells me you weren’t his target.”

“
So then what was he after?”

“
That is the question now, isn’t
it?”

CHAPTER 13

Sheila rushed down the circular drive.
“Padre,” she called out.

The detective stopped and turned. He gave her
a once-over and nodded. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you dress so
conservatively before.”

Sheila looked down at her crisp white suit,
white heels, white chiffon blouse buttoned to her neck. “Very
convent-like, don’t you think? And I didn’t even get to talk to the
cardinal. I was given his underling to interview.”

Padre pulled a cigarette from his pocket and
lit it. This was the sign Sheila was hoping to see. A pause from
Padre was like an invitation to dinner. She pulled her own
cigarette from a case and took the light Padre offered.

“
The underling is a certified priest.
Show a little respect. Did he have anything interesting to
say?”

“
I don’t know. Might cost
you.”

Padre smiled. “Ahhh, you do know how to hold
your cards close.”

Sheila smiled back. “You know me. I’ll show
you mine if you show me yours.”

They ambled down the circular drive to the
parking lot. Padre’s dented unmarked squad car looked anemic next
to the shiny silver Jaguar. Sheila changed cars about as often as
she changed clothes.

“
Let’s see,” Padre started, “since we
haven’t identified the man who jumped…”

“
Or was pushed,” Sheila
interjected.

“…
or was pushed, the cardinal can’t say
whether or not he knew him. He had been able to gain access to the
executive floor and the cardinal’s suite which leads me to believe
our jumper might have known the security guard.”